OCEAN STATE OF PLAY

Antisemitism roils Providence mayoral race

Mayor Brett Smiley, who converted to Judaism while in office, faces a Bernie Sanders-backed democratic socialist in Wednesday's Rhode Island primary, with an anti-Israel divestment referendum looming over the race

(Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley answers questions during a press conference at the Providence Public Safety Complex on December 16, 2025.

Matthew Kassel

September 8, 2026

In the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday, Israel and antisemitism have claimed prominence as unusually divisive sources of debate for a municipal race, raising concerns among Jewish leaders who worry the focus on Middle East policy in particular will only contribute to further polarization on a sensitive issue.

The election is pitting Mayor Brett Smiley, 47, a first-term incumbent who converted to Judaism while in office in 2024, against state Rep. David Morales, a 27-year-old democratic socialist backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and leading progressive groups including the Working Families Party.

One of the top subjects of debate is a controversial ballot initiative up for a vote in November that — if passed — would require Providence to refrain from investments in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation or genocide.”

Even as the ballot measure does not name Israel, unlike recent efforts explicitly targeting the Jewish state in Pittsburgh as well as Somerville, Mass., the referendum was driven by local anti-Israel activists, leaving Jewish leaders now rallying to oppose it with little doubt over its subtext. Smiley, a vocal supporter of Israel, has opposed the referendum, saying it could run afoul of state law, while Morales has been among its key defenders, framing the effort as a moral cause.

In a statement shared with Jewish Insider, Smiley noted “the city’s legal department has determined that this ordinance is both unenforceable and likely in violation of existing state law,” while adding the effort “is consuming resources that should be spent protecting the integrity of our elections.” He called the referendum “unproductive” and “burdensome to our election officials,” warning that it “will harm the finances of our city.”

Morales, in an interview with JI on Friday, said he believed the successful effort to secure ballot access for the referendum was a step toward ensuring “that in no way, shape or form is Providence contributing to” what he described as “apartheid, illegal military occupation or genocide.”

“The fact that we are actively having this type of conversation, I think, speaks to the broader question of who do we want representing us? Who do we want making decisions out of City Hall, the Statehouse or to the walls of Congress?” Morales added, pledging to use his “platform as mayor of Providence” to push for federal opposition to “unconditional military aid” for Israel.

The heated atmosphere of the election underscores the degree to which rising Democratic divisions over Israel are now shaping even local races for roles with no direct ability to influence foreign policy outcomes. In another demonstration of how such elections have gained a more nationalized valence, Morales has also won praise from Track AIPAC, an extreme anti-Israel account, even as AIPAC itself does not engage in city or state races.

As leftist candidates have increasingly linked their opposition to the war in Gaza to a broader suite of social justice causes on the domestic front, Israel is emerging as a significant issue animating an activist base that has helped fuel a growing number of major upsets at both the state and federal levels this cycle.

While there is no independent public polling on the race, a survey released last week and commissioned by a group tied to a supporter of Morales showed the Democratic insurgent leading by 10 points, with 48% of the vote.

A spokesperson for Smiley declined to share internal polling but expressed skepticism of the recent survey, noting that it was commissioned by a group affiliated with Jorge Elorza, a former Providence mayor who is backing Morales.

Morales, who has sought to channel the energy of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for mayor of New York City — where the state legislator hosted a fundraiser in July — has also notably denounced his opponent’s attendance at a conference sponsored by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, where Smiley is chair of the mayoral advisory board.

The conference, Morales argued in December, is organized by “outside donors pushing a national agenda,” which he claimed was “designed to chill political speech” and to crack down on “expressing solidarity with Palestine.” The mayor, who has also faced protests outside his home over a trip to Israel, has rejected that characterization, while pointing to what he casts as a “double standard” for supporters of the Jewish state.

“In my darkest days as mayor,” Smiley told JI last week, “I have found strength and resilience through my faith and my community, and I will continue to work every day to ensure that Providence Jews are able to gather, worship and celebrate safely and free from hatred and discrimination.”

“That’s why I have spoken out against antisemitism” and joined “conferences focused on understanding and combating antisemitism — conferences that my opponent has repeatedly condemned,” he said in the written comments.

Against the backdrop of such tensions, some of Smiley’s campaign signs were recently defaced by antisemitic imagery — including devil horns and a Hitler mustache — in an incident that turned up the temperature of an already contentious race.

“While campaigns can often get heated, there is no excuse for targeted attacks and hate speech in our political dialogue,” Smiley wrote in the statement to JI. “Actions like this are about more than one person — they send a message to an entire community that they are not safe or welcome here. That is not how we treat our neighbors in Providence, and it’s incumbent on all of us to disavow hate speech in all its forms.”

Speaking more broadly, Smiley said antisemitism “is on the rise around the country, and our community is feeling that here in Providence,” which is home to an estimated 15,000 Jewish residents.

“No one should ever have to ask if it’s safe to put a mezuzah on their door or display a menorah in their window, and yet these conversations are happening more and more often in our city,” the mayor told JI.

Morales, for his part, condemned the vandalism last month, while urging residents to oppose “all forms of bigotry,” a sentiment he reiterated to JI on Friday.

Despite concerns among local Jewish leaders who feel his rhetoric against Israel is sowing unneeded tensions, Morales vowed to engage proactively with community members who do not share his stances.

“When I talk about building a Providence for all, it’s not just about building a city for people I agree with,” he clarified in the interview. “It’s about engaging with neighbors from all walks of life and all backgrounds, and so I will certainly be engaging directly with our Jewish community, and ensuring that they feel safe and welcomed.”

Morales has faced attacks from the mayor over his past support for defunding the police, a position he has said he no longer holds. He emphasized to JI that as mayor, “when there is a need for additional police details for gatherings and events” at synagogues and other institutions, he will be “ready to deploy those additional forms of security measures and support.”

Providence, RI – April 12: Representative David Morales, a Providence Democrat, poses in Providence, RI on April 12, 2021. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Still, Jewish leaders indicated they were far from reassured by such promises, largely citing Morales’ vocal support for the ballot initiative they view as a thinly disguised effort to institutionalize the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel at the municipal level.

“Providence’s investment decisions should be driven by what’s best for Providence residents,” said Steven Baker, president and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, “not by divisive political tests that make our community more polarized and less united.”

Avi Nevel, the founder and CEO of the Rhode Island-Israel Collaborative, said he was “extremely concerned about what we are seeing in this race, and I think what has happened was totally uncalled for.”

“I definitely feel that there is a wave of anti-Israel sentiment that is also coinciding with antisemitism. Unfortunately, past experience has taught us that the two can often overlap, and I believe we need to take this very seriously,” he told JI last week.

Ken Schneider, the president of the Rhode Island Coalition for Israel, said the “mayoral race is of great importance to the Jewish community in Providence.” He called the ballot referendum both “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish” and said the city “should not insert itself in international politics.”

“The community has mobilized against this,” he told JI last week, while vowing that members of his group “will be at the polls” on Primary Day “to point out the major differences between Smiley and Morales.”

The winner on Wednesday will face Republican candidate Dave Talan as the prohibitive favorite in November. Providence has not elected a GOP mayor in nearly half a century.

Tony Affigne, a professor of political science at Providence College, said debates over Israel “aren’t the concerns that animate most Providence voters,” noting that “a critical shortage of affordable housing, school funding and effectiveness, anxiety about local ICE actions, property tax rates and community safety are top of mind for our local electorate.”

He framed the race as a fight for generational change, describing Morales as “an energetic, insurgent young candidate” who is “promising a focus on affordability and a clean break with the past.” He called the mayor a “well-connected, well-financed incumbent,” saying Smiley has been both “administratively experienced and policy oriented — if somewhat uninspiring on a personal level.”

“Either could win based on their relative strengths, depending somewhat on turnout for this and the other races on the ballot this year,” Affigne told JI.

Daily Kickoff

Gen Z’s conservative crack-up

Plus, Rabbi Shemtov's Hanukkah hop

Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images

Attendees listen to conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference in remembrance of late right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, in Phoenix, Arizona on December 18, 2025.

JI Staff

December 22, 2025

👋 Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish leaders in Texas concerned about Democrat James Talarico’s rhetoric on Israel as he mounts a Senate bid in the Lone Star State, and spotlight Providence, R.I., Mayor Brett Smiley‘s efforts to lean on his Jewish faith as the city reels from the shooting at Brown University. We interview Rabbi Levi Shemtov as the rabbi concludes a week of criss-crossing the District to celebrate Hanukkah, and talk to AJC CEO Ted Deutch about the need for Jewish communal unity on security issues in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Josh Blackman, Seymour Hersh and Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

We’re continuing to monitor developments in Australia. At a Sunday vigil in Sydney for the victims of last week’s Bondi Beach attack, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was jeered and booed over what the country’s Jewish leaders have derided as inadequate efforts to address antisemitism before and since the attacks.
Earlier today, an Australian court released police charging documents for the alleged shooter who was not killed during the attacks. The documents noted that Naveed Akram and his father had also hurled explosive devices into the crowd that had failed to detonate, and prior to the attacks had recorded a video explaining their motivations while standing in front of an ISIS flag.
In Israel, Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, in collaboration with the Ruderman Family Foundation, is hosting a conference this afternoon examining the U.S.-Israel relationship, including the connection between Israel and American Jewry.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Josh Kraushaar

The kids aren’t alright.

That’s the unmistakable takeaway from a weekend filled with shocking developments surrounding the views of young conservatives, punctuated by a Turning Point USA conference that turned into a proxy war between mainstream voices led by Ben Shapiro, looking to create guardrails against antisemites and conspiracy theorists within the MAGA movement, against a growing cadre of bad-faith right-wing influencers leading the charge to embrace extremist voices into the conservative coalition.

The conference concluded with Vice President JD Vance all but taking the side of the extremists, while offering fulsome praise to his friend, Tucker Carlson, as an essential part of the Republican Party coalition.

The last several days also featured news of an eye-opening Manhattan Institute focus group of Gen Z Nashville-area conservatives reluctant to offer any negative reaction toward Adolf Hitler and sharing numerous antisemitic stereotypes about Jews. (One 29-year-old woman offered this representative reaction about Hitler: “I think he was a great leader, to be honest. I think what he was going for was terrible, but I think he showed very strong leadership values.”)

The weekend ended with a Jewish Insider scoop that a Trump administration nominee for a senior position at the State Department has a long track record of making derogatory comments about the Jewish community, characterizing Jews as religiously incorrect and in need of conversion.

This moment was further underscored by the hideously antisemitic tirade that Candace Owens went on over the last few days, barely eliciting any serious pushback from conservative movement leaders. Meanwhile, former journalist Megyn Kelly, during her own speech Friday at the TPUSA conference, chose to go after Shapiro and CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss even as Kelly has publicly steered clear of criticizing Owens, citing the fact that she’s a young mother and a personal friend. (Shapiro, she said, is no longer a friend after he criticized her in his speech Thursday night.)

Shapiro, long one of the leading voices on the right, opened the conference with a warning that the conservative movement is in danger from “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty, who offer nothing but bile and despair.”

He called out Tucker Carlson, Owens and Kelly by name. “We must not let fear of audience anger deter us from telling the truth; we must not let fear of other hosts deter us from telling the truth,” Shapiro warned. “The fact that Candace has been vomiting all sorts of hideous and conspiratorial nonsense into the public square for years on end while others fly cover for her is … cowardly.”

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

TALARICO TALK

Texas Jewish voters, leaders alarmed by James Talarico’s Israel rhetoric

Democratic Texas State Rep. James Talarico speaks during a campaign launch rally on September 09, 2025 in Round Rock, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Jewish leaders in Texas are growing increasingly concerned about Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico’s comments on Israel, with four members of the community telling Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that without concerted outreach from Talarico, they’re likely to back Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) in the Democratic primary. Their frustrations came to a head after Talarico accused Israel of war crimes in response to a general question on foreign policy at an event last week. “I will use every bit of financial and diplomatic leverage that this country has to end the atrocities in Palestine,” Talarico vowed to do if elected. “I will not use your tax dollars to fund these war crimes. I will vote to ban offensive weapons to Israel.” He also said he’d refuse to accept support from AIPAC.

Calling him out: Art Pronin, who leads the Meyerland Area Democrats Club, a largely Jewish Democratic group in the Houston area, told JI he’s known Talarico for years and the candidate has spoken to the Meyerland Democrats group. Pronin has repeatedly expressed concerns to Talarico directly and to the campaign about his Israel rhetoric, to little effect. “I told him … ‘You’ve got to stop singling out one group,’” Pronin said, referring to AIPAC. He said that Talarico had apologized and said he would modify his rhetoric, but offered similar comments, unprompted, at the Houston town hall last week.

Read the full story here.